A burning globe

By Klaus Döring

Look around. Just any place on our globe. Yes, it’s burning. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, war. Will be Asia another place? Heaven forbid – no!

In today’s moment, nature’s story line has reached a low point. It’s unfathomable to me that some people can still so easily shrug it off—especially if they have kids or love anyone who is younger than they are—while for so many in my generation, it is such a constant, excruciating worry. Apathy, let alone denial, is no longer an acceptable option, because we know that if we stay on this course, the destruction will inevitably come for us, too.

I got the book “The Burning Earth: by Sunil Amrith. He is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History and professor in the School of the Environment at Yale University.

Ever since innovations in agriculture vastly expanded production of food, our remarkable achievements in reshaping nature have allowed billions of humans to exist and thrive. Yet every technological innovation has also empowered us to exploit each other and the planet with devastating brutality. In this magisterial book, historian Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and Empire, genocide and eco-cide, human freedom and planetary costs. His environmental lens provides an essential new way of understanding war as massive reshaping of the earth through global mobilizations of natural resources, including humans; and explains patterns of migration as a consequence of environmental harm. Amrith relates in gorgeous prose, and on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic—vibrant with stories, characters, and vivid images and rich archival resources.

In my opinion: A brilliant, paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, over the last 500 years.

We all know: Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

The main greenhouse gases that are causing climate change include carbon dioxide and methane. These come from using gasoline for driving a car or coal for heating a building, for example. Clearing land and cutting down forests can also release carbon dioxide. Agriculture, oil and gas operations are major sources of methane emissions. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture and land use are among the main sectors causing greenhouse gases.

The Earth is feeling the heat. Humans are responsible for global warming. Climate scientists have shown that humans are responsible for virtually all global heating over the last 200 years. Human activities like the ones mentioned above are causing greenhouse gases that are warming the world faster than at any time in at least the last two thousand years.

The average temperature of the Earth’s surface is now about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s (before the industrial revolution) and warmer than at any time in the last 100,000 years. The last decade (2011-2020) was the warmest on record, and each of the last four decades has been warmer than any previous decade since 1850.

Many people think climate change mainly means warmer temperatures. But temperature rise is only the beginning of the story. Because the Earth is a system, where everything is connected, changes in one area can influence changes in all others.

The consequences of climate change now include, among others, intense droughts, water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.

We face a huge challenge but already know many solutions. Many climate change solutions can deliver economic benefits while improving our lives and protecting the environment. We also have global frameworks and agreements to guide progress, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (where I got some details!) and the Paris Agreement. Three broad categories of action are: cutting emissions, adapting to climate impacts and financing required adjustments.

Switching energy systems from fossil fuels to renewables like solar or wind will reduce the emissions driving climate change. But we have to act now. While a growing number of countries are committing to net zero emissions by 2050, emissions must be cut in half by 2030 to keep warming below 1.5°C. Achieving this means huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas: over two-thirds of today’s proven reserves of fossil fuels need to be kept in the ground by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic levels of climate change.

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